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Six Chix, 8/11/24

Honestly, to me, this didn’t seem like a very desperate measure at all! It seems like she just mentally recited a nursery rhyme and that allowed her to exercise superhuman power over the weather. Who knows, though, maybe she’s exhausted herself from the effort. Maybe she won’t be able to move out of her chair for hours. Maybe she won’t have the powers to deal with some truly catastrophic climactic event down the road and thousands will die because she wanted to read outside for an afternoon! Lots of world-building possibilities here.

Marvin, 8/11/24

“Ah, so you say the constant shit and piss jokes are wearing you down. Well, uh. What if a dog had fleas. What if you told a dog not to take its flea collar off, but it did anyway, and now it has fleas. That’s a joke, right. Like, structurally, you definitely would look at that and say ‘That’s a joke,’ right? Legally speaking, if anyone tries to not pay you because you’re being paid to write jokes, I mean.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/11/24

So Parker decided to not file charges against Randy after learning the latter had been brutally beaten by his own father. I guess we have a long and emotionally fraught but ultimately fascinating journey ahead of us as we explore the limits of forgiveness and restorative justice and learn whether the cycle of violence can ever be truly broken. Oh, wait, what’s that? You’re saying that Randy mysteriously left town and we’ll never have to deal with him again? Huh. Well, that’s a lot tidier, for sure! I guess all our problems are solved, once again!

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Six Chix, 7/10/24

Comics coloring errors have been a source of cruel mockery and speculation on this blog for decades now, but I think that the rate of these mistakes has dropped dramatically as the web has become the primary delivery system for these strips. Still, the possibility always lurks in the background, and can lead to situations like this, where the reader is left unsure whether they’re looking at a mistake or not. What I think is happening here is that this seagull is supposed to be shitting all over this guy’s head, but the colorist recoiled in disgust and instead used red to imply that the bird’s claws had torn the man’s scalp open and he was bleeding everywhere. Both are distasteful, and it’s interesting to think of which is “better”. I vote for shit myself because I’m a baby about pain. Anyway, I guess it’s a joke about a hat?

Family Circus, 7/10/24

Speaking of being a baby about pain, I’m a big softie and whenever I see a friendly, outgoing animal or a happy toddler, I often think about how they must live a good life where they’re loved and well treated. This strip takes that idea to the extreme: only someone who has never experienced pain at all could possibly propose such a horrifying idea in such a casual manner. Good for Jeffy now, but also: someday he’ll see that he’s about to step on a nail, and he’ll just not try to avoid it, because he won’t know why he should. “Now I’ll never lose my shoes again!” he’ll think, the moment before his fool’s paradise of a life dissolves forever.

Mark Trail, 7/10/24

Cherry, for the last time, just because Mark has a little stubble now, that does not make him a bear, plus you are heterosexuals, this is cultural appropriation

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Mary Worth, 7/9/24

OK, here’s the thing: we know really next to nothing about Dawn’s mother, and I admit that I’ve been projecting a lot onto the image of the icy WASP queen in Wilbur’s mind. Basically, I assumed that she was, yes, an icy New Englander, but also a more or less normal person, and honestly it’s kind of surprising that I’ve only now started to wonder if maybe she’s not? Like, let’s be real, this is a woman who let Wilbur [AUTHOR’S NOTE: I CAME UP WITH THREE DIFFERENT INCREASINGLY CRASS EUPHEMISMS FOR “HAVING UNPROTECTED AND ULTIMATELY PROCREATIVE SEX WITH” HERE AND DECIDED NOT TO ACTUALLY RUN WITH ANY OF THEM, YOU’RE WELCOME] her, and anyone who makes that kind of decision can’t be OK, mentally or spiritually. So maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that she had compiled a quick list of “Ways to bond with Dawn” that went like “1. Do shopping, like in Sex in the City, 2. Go to ballet, 3. Eat at fancy places [research on Yelp.com], 4. Discuss various issues of interest to college students [research on TikTok],” and when none of that took, just texted her the PDF of a plane ticket home from the next room and trusted her to do the right thing.

Six Chix, 7/9/24

So it’s been a little bit since I checked in with Six Chix, but, you know what? If a syndicated newspaper comic does a strip where you see someone dry-humping a giant sandwich, that’s absolutely going to make it onto my blog. If there’s anything you should know about joshreads dot com, the Comics Curmudgeon, it’s that. In a perfect world it would’ve been Blondie, but they long ago lost their joie de vivre, so kudos to Six Chix for stepping up to the plate.